1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of stapling sheets situated in parallel bins and to a device related thereto.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are known from United Kingdom patent application 2,227,733 and from Japanese patent application 59-69346 various methods and devices sheet stapling. To enable stapling in the device described in the UK patent application, each stack of sheets lying in a bin is gripped by a gripper, partially pulled out of the bin and brought into contact with the stapler which has been placed in the stapling position next to that bin. After stapling, the stapled stack of sheets is pushed back into the bin and the stapler is moved to the following bin. Thereafter, the gripper grips the next stack of sheets and moves the stack of sheets in that following bin to the stapling position. A disadvantage of this known device is that in order to be able to staple a yet unstapled stack of sheets, the stack of sheets has to be moved from the position originally occupied in a bin to another position. By gripping and moving a stack of unstapled and therefore loose sheets lying on top of one another, there is always the danger that the sheets may shift relative to one another and subsequently be attached to each other in a shifted position. In the device described in the Japanese patent application, the position occupied by a stack of sheets in the stapling position corresponds to the original position occupied by the stack in that bin. However, in order to ensure that the stapler, which viewed in the direction of the width of a bin is wider than the normal bin width can surround the edge portion of a stack of sheets situated in that bin, the bin width must be increased when the stapler is moved to the stapling position at that bin. A disadvantage of this device is that the increase requires more space and extra components for each bin.